Do We Move Through Tools Too Hastily?
I was always the one playing with the cardboard box, wonder what that says about me? 
It’s a serious point though. I used to get annoyed by learning facilitators saying:
“That’s an interesting site (and/or) application - how could we use it for education?”
Now I find myself wondering the same thing, rather than just getting on and using whatever it is.
I’ve just discovered a paradox though. Although new things come and go, I’m pretty faithful to my chosen tool set :
- Flickr (I’m soooo Old Skool!) I’ve had an account since Sept 2004
- Blog - I’ve had blogs on Blogdrive, Edublogs and here. I’ve blogged continuously since Nov 2003 (eek that’s a long time!)
- NetNewsWire Lite- my RSS reader of choice since 2004
- BlogLines - RSS reader for when I’m away from the mac - since 2003
- VoodooPad - my choice for a personal off-line wiki since March 2004
- Furl - social bookmarking since Nov 2003 (I use del.icio.us more now but furl is still where most of my bookmarks are as it saves a copy)
- gmail - for my email since July 2004
- MediaWiki - for my teaching resources for usefulwiki.com since Feb 2007
Starting to think I’m a dinosaur except for the most recent addition:
Twitter - microblogging since March 2007
I blog here and at the 
In the classroom I think this is a real problem, I’ve seen lots of exciting things done with social media/web2 but much of it is individual examples of what could be done rather than sustained use that becomes part of the classes learning. Maybe this is my age talking and younger folk are more agile?
Hi Linda,
A thought provoking post - I will catch up with original in time! It is very true that certainly this year there have been a plethora of new tools coming out throughout the year. More than this, a bit like the expansion in 24hour news, there are now blog posts about stuff pretty well 24 hours a day… many blogging about these same new tools. A little like the latest craze people flock to try them out, some stick, some fall by the wayside. Sadly I think we need more time to reflect on some of the tools before we move onto the next… I know that I for one have been quitly of all or some of the above, minus the much needed reflection!
Perhaps 2007 was an unusual year, and now that we are all settling into this way of global networking we will be able to be more reflective.
There are some out there who do truly do us a service by taking their time to look through applications…. a case of more haste… less speed?
Linda, Thanks for welcome back comment over at my place. Good thoughts here on reflecting before acting. As I learned during my time away, even the old standbys like blogging may need some periodic rethinking. We just have to keep remembering what we want to do, and why. How to do them comes later.
Hi Tom - I’m sorry my spam filter got you! Yes I agree, keeping clarifying our aims and the underpinning reasons for those aims is more important than the ‘how’ of it. To quote a current phrase “It’s the teach not the tech” that matters.
I’m enjoying your return to blogging BTW